Men Rescued From Desert Island Thanks to Giant ‘HELP’ Sign

Three mariners were rescued from a remote atoll in the Pacific on Tuesday after a U.S. Navy plane spotted a sign reading “HELP” that the stranded men had built on a beach with palm fronds.

The group had been stranded for a week living off coconut meat on Pikelot Atoll—a 31-acre spit of land that is part of Micronesia. The trio, all in their 40s, had set out from Polowat Atoll on March 31 aboard a 20-foot skiff with the intention of fishing in the waters around Pikelot when their vessel was caught by swells and its motor was damaged, U.S. Coast Guard officials told CNN.

They managed to make it ashore on Pikelot but their radio battery died before they could alert anyone. So it wasn’t until Saturday that the Coast Guard “received a distress call from a relative of the three mariners reporting her three uncles had not returned.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.